Moving to Portland? Here are some resources to help you get settled!

The Basics:

Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Multnomah County. It is located in the Willamette Valley region of the Pacific Northwest, at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers. The city covers 145 square miles and had an estimated population of 619,360 in 2014, making it the 28th most populous city in the United States.

Education:

Portland is served by six public school districts and many private schools. Portland Public Schools is the largest school district, operating 85 public schools.

Private schools in the area include The Northwest Academy, Rosemary Anderson High School, Portland Adventist Academy, Portland Lutheran School, the Portland Waldorf School, and Trinity Academy. The city and surrounding metropolitan area is also home to a large number of Roman Catholic-affiliated private schools, including St. Mary’s Academy, an all-girls school; De La Salle North Catholic High School; the co-educational Jesuit High School; La Salle High School; and Central Catholic High School, the only archdiocesan high school in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland.

Portland State University, located in downtown Portland, has the second largest enrollment rate of any university in the state (after Oregon State University), with a student body of nearly 30,000.It has been named among the top fifteen percentile of American universities by The Princeton Review for undergraduate education,and has been internationally recognized for its degrees in Masters of Business Administration and urban planning.The city is also home to the Oregon Health & Science University, as well as Portland Community College.

Public Transportation:

TriMet operates most of the region’s buses and the MAX (short for Metropolitan Area Express) light rail system, which connects the city and suburbs. The 1986-opened MAX system has expanded to five lines, with the latest being the Orange Line to Milwaukie, in service as of September 2015. WES Commuter Rail opened in February 2009 in Portland’s western suburbs, linking Beaverton and Wilsonville.